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March, 1919 



Number 163 



THE UNIVERSITY OF 

NORTH CAROLINA 

RECORD 




MARVIN HENDRIX STACY 
1877-1919 



PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY 

Entered as Second-class Matter at the Posto£Sce at 

CHAPEL HILL, N. 0. 




MARVIN HENDRIX STACY 



THE UNIVERSITY OF 

NORTH CAROLINA 1>—^ 
RECORD 



MARCH, 1919 
NUMBER 163 




MARVIN HENDRIX STACY 
1877-1919 



RALEIGH 

Edwaeds & Bboughton Feinting Oo. 

1919 



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APR 30 1919 



Introductory Note 



At the first meeting of the Faculty of the Tjniversity following 
the death of Marvin Hendrix Stacy, Chairman of the Faculty, 
it was unanimously voted that a memorial service should be held 
in his honor, and a committee consisting of Professors H. M. 
Wagstaff, L. R. Wilson, T. J. Wilson, Jr., Wm. Cain, and T. F. 
Hickerson was appointed to arrange such service. 

In accord with this plan, services were held in Gerrard Hall 
on Sunday, March 2, at 4 o'clock. Dr. H. W. Chase, Chairman 
of the Faculty, presiding. Addresses were made by Dr. F. P. 
Venable, representing the University; Mr. A. M. Coates, repre- 
senting the student-body; and State Senator Dorman Thompson, 
representing the State of North Carolina. The invocation and 
closing prayer were made by Rev. Euclid McWhorter, of the 
Methodist Church of Chapel Hill. Appropriate musical selec- 
tions were rendered by the University quartette. A record of the 
service is to be found in the following pages. With it are in- 
cluded resolutions by the Faculty, the student-body, the State Sen- 
ate, and the General Assembly of ISTorth Carolina. 

Louis R. Wilson, Editor. 



Marvin Hendrix Stacy 

INVOCATION 

Rev. Euclid McWhortek, Pastor of the M. E. Church, South 

Almighty God, our Father, Kedeemer, and sympathizing Friend, 
unto Thee shall all flesh come. In love and tender mercy, and with 
great compassion hast thou dealt with thy children ; for thou know- 
est our frame, and rememberest that we are dust. Our sins have 
been many, and our crosses have been heavy, but the greatness of 
Thy grace outweighs them all. 

In moments of conscious weakness and danger, when the angry 
storms would have overwhelmed us. Thou hast hidden us in the 
secret of Thy pavilion. Thou hast been our guide when the night 
grew dark, and the tears dimmed our eyes, and the shadows hid the 
path. Thou hast kindled billows of light within the sanctuary of 
the broken heart, even when the overhanging sky was unlighted 
by a single star. When life's plans have been broken, and the 
fragile ships of human hopes, human dreams and human ambitions 
have pounded against the hidden rocks, walking upon the waves. 
Thou hast sought us ; and at Thy voice the tempest ceased its roar- 
ing, and the billows v/ere stilled. When fear as a giant has risen 
in the way, and when heart and flesh have failed. Thou hast spoken 
with a sweetness and sympathy, so unlike the voice of man, that 
hope has sprung up again as the flowers of Spring, while a new 
perspective has appeared upon the landscape, and the hill-tops have 
glistened with the light from another sun. 

Forgive us, O Lord, if, in our finiteness and grief, we question 
the wisdom of Thy providence, or betimes have fallen victims of 
discouragement when we could not see the underlying purposes 
which control human events. We do not know why this University 
should be bereft of her most brilliant and useful servants. As we 
bend under this severe new stroke, our hearts are sad, and we 
blindly wonder why this beloved son, this noble citizen, this wise 
counselor, this lofty spirit, Avhose kindness, earnestness, honesty and 
devotion have guided and inspired so many youthful hearts and 
minds into realms of high thought and service, should be taken just 



6 Marvin Hendkix Stacy 

when he came to the most influential relation, and that his noble 
labors should be cut short just as the tide of his exalted manhood 
reached its highest flood. Yet we believe in Thy goodness; we 
trust thy wisdom ; and we obediently submit to Thy will. 

"We thank Thee for his life ; for his ideals ; for his broad vision 
of service; for his lofty character; for his simple and unostenta- 
tious spirit ; for his patriotic devotion to his country ; and his love 
for God. "We thank Thee that while his tide of earnest purpose 
and his keen desire to achieve a large service for his State were 
running swiftly, he had not forgotten the gentle and reflning asso- 
ciations of his early life, and so was ready, when he heard the voice 
calling, and was not afraid. 

"We pray that we who are alive and remain for another short day 
may be inspired by his virtues, and admonished by his sudden sur- 
cease. May his spirit find a definite and holy reincarnation in the 
life of every young man who has felt the touch of his great soul. 
And may this fair institution, which has received the holy oblation 
of his efficacious labors, be still guided by Thy good providence, 
and all her future sons hold in sacred memory his blessed deeds. 
Amen. 



Dean Stacy and the University 

Professor F. P. Venable 

This winter will go down in University tradition as one of heavy 
loss and mourning. Three of the University's most noted figures 
and leaders have been taken by death. Two of them were just 
attaining the zenith of their powers and usefulness, men of rare 
gifts, of splendid qualities of mind and heart, who had won an 
assured place in the esteem and affections of the community and 
the State, of whom we were justly proud and in whose care and 
guidance we had fondly hoped the University would be safe for 
years to come. The third, full of years and honors, beloved by all 
and loving all, refounding the University, desolate and deserted, 
at the time of her lowest estate; having served her faithfully for 
more than a third of a century, he gently fell asleep as a tired child 
in the arms of its mother. 

Today we have met in this hall whose foundation stone was laid 
a hundred years ago and which has been a witness to so much of the 
joy and sorrow, the hopes and the disappointments of the gener- 
ations that have passed through its doors — met to do honor to the 
last of those young leaders who has been taken from us, as a few 
weeks ago we met in memory of that other, the brilliant young 
president who fell in the University's service. 

It seems strange that Stacy should be taken in the very flower 
of his manhood and at the time of our greatest need. And yet I 
cannot believe in an unfinished life. We do wrong when we erect 
broken shafts over our dead. Even the ancients said, "Whom the 
gods love die young," and in these days of the sacrifice of our 
heroic dead on the battle-field Ave have learned that life is not meas- 
ured by the number of years but by the fruitage of those years in 
high endeavor, worthy deeds and utter faithfulness to the best 
that is in us. How rich and full was the life of him we mourn when 
measured by such a standard — his life a rounded whole in fidelity 
to duty, in unwavering loyalty, in unselfish service and fine achieve- 
ment, the full sheaves of a gathered harvest. And so we laid him 
to rest in the presence of the highest officials of the State he served 



8 Maeviht Hendrix Stacy 

so well, with bared heads and unaffected grief but with hearts full 
of loving gratitude for all that he had done for the University and 
for all that his life had meant to each one of us. 

To have been closely associated with Marvin Hendrix Stacy 
through these years in which his life has been bound up with that 
of this Old Mother of noble sons has been a source of pleasure and 
pride. To be remembered amjong his friends has been a privilege 
which I prize. I taught him as a student ; I watched the growth 
of his strong, forceful character and the development of his powers. 
It is the high reward of the teacher who magnifies his calling to 
see these forces in which he plays a part in molding, forming, pol- 
ishing the plastic clay of youth until the perfect work is done arid 
a man stands forth fitted for the service of his fellowmen — a 
miracle, to work which this University was founded through the 
labors and love of the forefathers. 

It happened that I could be of service to him when now and then 
he came to me for advice. I urged upon him to be just to the latent 
powers within him and to develop them to their fullest. I con- 
vinced him, when some years ago he was offered a college presi- 
dency, that his duty and his greater field for service lay here. 
And so his fortunes and his happiness were ever interwoven with 
those of the University he loved and, in very truth, he gave his 
life in her service. 

All of us, when we speak the name, have a picture of the man 
as one who "stood four-square to all the winds that blew." True 
to himself, he could not be false to any man. Loyal to his friends, 
he was just to those who differed from him. His course was not 
laid down by the line of expediency but by the direct path of truth 
and honor and duty. His thought was not concealed by word 
mongering nor diplomatic terms, but was straight, honest, sincere. 
One knew what he meant and respected even when differing. IS^at- 
urally such a man spoke few words but those to the purpose, and 
they carried weight in his daily intercourse, in the council room, 
and with the offender in cases of discipline. He loved action and 
results more than words. 

And yet when he spoke in assemblies of the students and to 
audiences in all parts of the commonwealth, there was the force 
of logic, the skill of argument, the aptness of anecdote, and the 



University of North Carolina 9 

fire of the orator. Few of those connected with the University 
have wielded a wider and more helpful influence in this regard. 

He was no self-seeker. There was little thought for self in all 
his planning. As he told me once, his ambition was limited to 
doing the present duty well, and it was sufficient for him. Nor 
have I ever seen in him any evidence of pride in an accomplished 
task or in the commendation it brought forth. He was far too 
simple, unaffected, even seK-depreciatory not to feel that he had 
after all fallen short of his high aims as every strong, honest soul 
must feel when brought to the bar of judgment of its own con- 
science. 

As a teacher he was clear, convincing, having the patience of 
sympathy with slower minds, and never sparing himself to do his 
full duty to those he taught. Nor was he one of those who think 
their duty ceases with the lecture hour and does not extend beyond 
the classroom. He gained the confidence and affection of his stu- 
dents and became their adviser, helper, friend. He had that higher 
intuition of the teacher which enabled him to understand the diffi- 
culties and devise a way of leading the stumbler out of his per- 
plexing maze. 

As dean, he controlled by his impartiality, the justice of his de- 
cisions, the clearness of his exposition of the right, as well as his 
sympathy with the offender as one not simply to be punished 
through the enforcement of law but to be saved and to be built up 
into regenerate manhood whenever possible. As executive, he 
showed an insight into University problems, a broadness of vision, 
a tactful leadership and the same strong, manly honesty and ab- 
sence of self-seeking which dominated his whole life. And so his 
colleagues awakened to a new knowledge of him and a realization 
that here was a man indeed — one to be relied upon and to be loy- 
ally followed — a leader to be proud of. 

Strong in action, high in ideals, pure of heart, upright of life; 
O, noble soul ! hail and farewell. 



Dean Stacy as Students Knew Him 

Albert M. Coates 

There are those here who are thinking of a day in September 
four years ago when their attention was challenged by a man un- 
affected in his simplicity and rugged in his strength who was 
introduced to us as Marvin Hendrix Stacy, newly-elected dean of 
the College of Liberal Arts in the University of ISTorth Carolina. 
We saw him rise to deliver his inaugural address and we felt the 
deep rich volume of his voice adding to a personality strong at 
first glance. He revealed education as a way that we might have 
life and have it more abundantly and the University of ISTorth 
Carolina as an institution for the development of men. Against 
this background and in the light of a simple illustration he in- 
terpreted himself. On the day before he took from his postoffice 
box a calendar. It bore the picture of an old sailor in his boat on 
a lake pulling at the oars, and a little child by his side, its hands 
on his arm. A friend who saw it remarked : "It's a little hand but 
it's a wonderful help to the old sailor." And while we thrilled to 
the meaning of the statement, we heard him say that in the struggles 
we all must meet if we dared to be men he wanted to be with us, 
his hand on our arm, helping us along. On that day, in that 
moment, this big, strong man entered into our lives with an in- 
spiring, strength-increasing thrill which is with us still. 

So if you want an impersonal discussion of his achievements or 
his life you must get it from those who were bystanders while he 
lived among us. You cannot expect it from men of whose lives he 
was a part. We do not talk in impersonal terms of men we love. 

And, speaking not as from a platform, but as students speak: 
in their rooms, on afternoon walks, on drug store benches, in groups 
about the well, the life of Dean Stacy was that of a man whose 
work was to know, and who knew, the record of every student as 
he wrote it : in the classroom, on the campus, among his fellows ; 
whose service was at the crucial point where struggles came in the 
individual life, where conflicts raging between groups called on 
him to judge ; who through these intimate personal relations gained 



Univeksity of JSTorth Carolina 11 

and held the esteem of every man and the friendship of every 
group; a man against w^hom the charge of unfairness was never 
brought ; a man who, rooting his life in such things as these, could 
but grow in statue and in favor with us all. 

He originated no philosophy, was slave to no theory. He lived 
a life. Its story is written on the heart of many a man in this 
gathering. That story tells of men who went into his office in 
despair as circumstances blotted out the chance of staying in col- 
lege, who came out with courage renewed and hope reinspired. It 
tells of men who had failed to pass their work and felt the despair 
of those whose best is not acceptable, who were shown the larger 
life which is the end and aim of all our studies. It tells of men 
running from the consequences of duties they had shirked, who 
were nerved to face about and turn defeat into a victory of char- 
acter. It tells of men who had broken faith with honor who were 
brought back to the consciousness of manhood. Names may be 
added and occasions may be multiplied, but to the same end. 

If these things he did were his success, the way in which he 
did them was their consecration. For it was not by way of the 
intellect alone, or by his appeal to sincerity or honesty as abstract 
virtues; it was that he traced them to their beginnings and found 
them nourished in a mother's love, strengthened by a father's pride, 
and growing in the atmosphere which men call home. It was this 
that made a mother feel he was on her side, which made a father 
trust a son to his care, which made us all feel in his presence some- 
thing of the safety, the security, the restfulness of home. It was 
this that gave him power to reach every type and condition of men 
with his message of character and manhood. It was this which 
gave him a dwelling place and a home in the regions of the heart. 

When we saw that the things he taught us were the things he 
stood for ; when we saw him live the truth he had spoken ; we saw 
that truth in action is righteousness; that character alive is man- 
hood. We saw in him this manhood which illustrated its own prin- 
ciples ; which acted the belief that the only reward for a noble act 
is to have done it ; which found in itself the source of its truth and 
the inspiration of its action. We saw it rise in and of itself into 



12 Marvin Hendkix Stact 

a tower of strength that stood, four-square to all the winds that 
blew. And rising thus it gave us an insight into the life eternal 
and the man immortal. 

The relationship he bore the men he lived with was the em- 
bodiment of the poet's thought : "Be noble and the nobleness that 
lies in other men sleeping but never dead will rise in majesty to 
meet thine own." His influence flowed out to those about him 
through the mystic cords of tenderness and love he had drawn from 
our hearts into his own. Through them he lifted men out of them- 
selves and upward to his own high level of manhood; lifted the 
campus out of the isolation which sets a college apart, above and 
beyond the pale which surrounds it and sets a special standard 
for its actions, until the laws of ISTorth Carolina became the laws 
of this campus, and men while students yet entered into the dignity 
and responsibility of citizens of a great commonwealth. And the 
University of North Carolina while training intellects molded 
characters; while providing fellowship made citizens; while im- 
parting knowledge developed men. 

What is this power that united us in him and drew us upward? 
We who come from every county of ISTorth Carolina, we who repre- 
sent every extreme of poverty and wealth, of crudeness and refine- 
ment, of weakness and strength; we who represent the traits, ten- 
dencies, and traditions of a people? What is the meaning of the 
life where we all draw together ? It is the life where elements fade 
into oneness, where suspicions and antagonisms cease, where dis- 
tinctions and differences lose themselves in the glow and heat, 
where all that is real and true fuse and merge into the thing we 
call democracy. And that democracy a life, where justice gets its 
nature and its meaning, where truth lives in righteousness, where 
character and manhood are supreme. The boy out in the mountain 
country filled with an inarticulate yearning to know what it was 
that he felt; the boy on the plain looking towards this treasure 
house of opportunity while the longing in his eyes told that his 
soul had gone beyond the limitations of the horizon; boys from 
every hilltop crying for the light and Avith no language but a cry ; 
the slowly crystallizing community consciousness struggling to lift 
its people up, shot through with that determined idealism which 
will give to its children the opportunity denied to it ; this higher, 



University of I'Torth Carolhsta 13 

better life, this possible North Carolina, striving against weak- 
nesses and antagonisms, found in Dean Stacy the living proof of 
its possibility and stirring expression of its soul, as on this rostrum, 
on this free cam'pus, on a hundred platforms throughout ISTorth 
Carolina, he pleaded for civic righteousness and individual man- 
hood. 

There are men who stand out among their fellows, strong and 
fearless, meeting squarely every shock, yet holding themselves 
aloof. There are men who in serving diffuse themselves so com- 
pletely that at the end they are used up and gone. There are a 
chosen few who in the mystery of life are able to rise up among us, 
strong and great and good, enter into the lives of others and live 
in them, and yet retain a character and a personality which is their 
own. Just as at a carnival the racket and the din and the shouts 
interfere with the music of the band, yet afar off the false sounds 
die away and the pure tones of music live, so these men live in the 
reality of their lives, giving to us an understanding of the nature 
and the meaning of immortality. Such was the man we knew, 
the man we esteemed, the man we loved — Dtean Stacy. 



Dean Stacy and the State 

State Senator Dorman Thompson 

Kepresenting the citizensliip of the State of l^orth Carolina, I 
come to pay tribute to Marvin Hendrix Stacy. More than that, 
I come to place on record the testimony of a friend. I trust that 
I shall be pardoned if I speak in an intimate and personal way, 
for I know not how to speak otherwise. I deem it a great privilege 
that this man called me friend. The highest relationship in life 
is that of friendship. A man can give you nothing better. When 
he gives you his friendship, he gives you himself; a gift that has 
in it none of the selfishness that tinges all of the other relationships 
of life. In a simple but sincere manner I shall speak in a personal 
way of my love for Marvin Stacy, and at the same time, in behalf 
of the State he served, give public expression to the universal 
•esteem in which he was held. I shall make no attempt to character- 
ize him in eulogistic phrases. Plain, simple, unassuming in his 
daily life, he would not, now that he is gone, have us speak other 
than in the language of pure affection. 

The tragedy of his death was supreme. The realization of it 
was appalling in its effect. Just a week prior to his death, Stacy 
went to Raleigh to attend the meeting of the Executive Committee 
of the Board of Trustees. Worn and exhausted from his many 
labors, the hand of death then upon him, he went in response to 
the demands of what he conceived to be his duty. Faithful in all 
things, he gave to himself no consideration. It was my privilege 
to spend a part of that day with him and to realize again the value 
and depth of his friendship. Our conversation centered around 
the institution we loved, the institution he was then giving his "very 
life to serve. In one short week the word went out to the State of 
North Carolina that he was dead. The host of his friends, with 
grief-stricken hearts, understood that once more their University 
had been called upon to suffer affliction at the hands of the cruel 
and unrelenting plague which has scourged our land. 

In the year 1899, while I was a student at the University of 
North Carolina, M. H. Stacy entered its doors. He had not been 
here long until our paths crossed. We paused at the crossing. 



University of North Carolina 15 

became acquainted, and decided to travel on together. Our ac- 
quaintanceship soon grew into friendship, and friends we continued 
until the day of his death. That friendship is now one of the 
treasured memories of my life. 

Marvin Stacy's father was an itinerant Methodist preacher, and 
hence he came from a home of plain living and high thinking. As 
he watched his father give his life in serving others, there grew 
and developed in Stacy the idea that the end and aim of life is 
Service, not Self. As we watch the careers of the sons of preach- 
ers, men who come from homes of frugal habits and high ideals, 
we realize that there are some things in life which money cannot 
provide. Possessing aspirations and desires given him by the pre- 
cepts and example of a godly father, Stacy came to the University 
a man already in the making. As a student, he at once turned 
his thought and attention to the purposes which brought him to 
this place. Endowed by nature with mental powers more than 
ordinary, led on by ideals by no means the common possession of 
mankind, he at once assumed a place of leadership in college life 
and became a director of college thought. He was a student, but 
his studies were not confined to books. He believed that a college 
education means much more than the acquisition of knowledge. 
He sought and found here the training which would make of him 
the man that God intended him to be. Possessed of a mind logical 
and orderly in its processes, it was but natural that he should give 
much attention to the work of the literary society to which he be- 
longed. As a result he became one of the best debaters ever pro- 
duced by this institution, and acquired the power to give adequate 
expression to the impulses which stirred within his soul. As a 
fitting climax to his college course, on the day of his graduation, he 
won the much-coveted and much-to-be-desired prize, the "Wiley P. 
Mangum Medal. 

After graduation, Stacy returned to Chapel Hill as an instructor 
in the department in which he had specialized, and rose by suc- 
cessive steps to the position of full professor. He was a specialist 
in the best sense of that much-abused word, a specialist not with 
the idea that his department was superior to any other, not even 
with the idea that it was of supreme importance, but a specialist 
simply by reason of the fact that, due to the limitations of man's 



16 MAitviN Hendrix Stacy 

intellectual power, lie must specialize. Marvin Stacy had regarded 
his college course as a preparation for a life of service, and never 
did he lose the broad and sympathetic outlook on life. 

When Edward Kidder Graham was called to assume the presi- 
dency of this institution, Marvin Stacy was selected as the dean 
of the College of Liberal Arts. With ideals and purposes in com- 
mon, they labored together for this University, and through this 
University for the State. When the president was stricken down 
and the institution left without a head, the Trustees turned to the 
dean for leadership, and he was made chairman of the faculty. 
Accepting the responsibilities inherent in the position tendered 
him, he set about to justify the faith of those who placed their trust 
in him. He won the confidence of the faculty; he was worthy of 
the respect in which he was held by the student-'body ; and the State 
regarded him as in every way fitted to carry on to complete fulfill- 
ment the plans and purposes held in common by the dean and his 
former chief. 

We hear much said about the immature judgment of the careless 
college boy. As for me, I would rather have the "campus verdict" 
as to the qualifications of a man than the opinion of any other body 
on earth. There seems to be in the combined judgment of the 
student-body some hidden, some uncanny power to read and in- 
terpret the very inner soul of man. He may deceive and delude 
the wise, he may parade before the world clothed in garments 
which hide his real self, and that without fear of detection, but 
you may trust the student-body to appraise him at his true worth. 
A man thrown into the discard by the student-body with which he 
comes in contact may well take stock of himself. On the other 
hand, the world can trust with implicit confidence the man pro- 
nounced good by the students who each day watch his life and 
weigh his purposes. The students of this institution have ren- 
dered their verdict as to Marvin Stacy, and constantly has that 
verdict been reaffirmed. They bear testimony to his sense, of fair- 
ness, to the justice of his judgments, to his sympathetic co- 
operation in all their endeavors, to the breadth of his view, to 
his realization of his obligation to his State, to the largeness of his 
soul. We accept the verdict, and today declare that in all things 
they judged him well. 



University of Worth Carolina 17 

The State suffered irreparable loss by the death of Marvin Stacy. 
In the last twenty-five years North Carolina has accomplished a 
century of progress. The social conscience of man is alive as never 
before. We realize noAv in a new and different way our obligation 
to our fellownien. The day when we wrought simply for ourselves 
has passed. Gradually but surely a new conception of the Uni- 
versity has established itself in the minds of our people. The Uni- 
versity is no longer considered by any as an institution, exclusive 
in its ideals and purposes, a seat of learning for the few who come 
within the immediate sphere of its activities. It stands today, as 
it has always stood, the champion of culture and scholarship, but 
more than that, it realizes that if it serves the purpose for which it 
was created, it must touch in a vital way the life of all the people. 
Refusing to compromise with ignorance, still it understands that 
it must carry the power of its purposes and the spirit of its ideals 
to the remotest borders of our State. The movements that make 
for the betterment of social conditions are matters of supreme im- 
portance to this institution. It must have its part in shaping and 
molding those conditions. It must do more than work in an in- 
direct way through the students which it sends back into the life 
of the State. In so far as it can, it must reach in a direct and per- 
sonal way the citizenship of the State. In the civic laboratory of 
its classrooms it must dissect and consider the many questions that 
arise in connection with our social and economic life. Through its 
extension work it must carry these mature judgments to the people 
who clamor for assistance outside its walls. There is no thought 
that education in its real sense can be secured in any other way 
than that which has heretofore obtained. There has been dis- 
covered no easy road to learning. The people who think of the 
University as I speak of it have no such idea. There is no desire 
to cheapen and degrade learning, culture, or scholarship. The Uni- 
versity has simjily lifted its eyes, looked out on the whole State as 
its field of service, and comprehended the fact that it has much 
which it can give to mankind, without impoverishing itself. As 
a result the University has been carried close to the people. The 
ordinary man in North Carolina, the man who Avas so unfortunate 
as not to pass within its gates, loves the University as never before. 



18 MARviii Hejstdeix Stacy 

Marvin Hendrix Stacy worked to put into force and effect this 
conception of the University. We confidently looked to him to 
carry on the work so well begun. We know that his great heart 
beat in sympathetic unison with the heart of the State. We know 
that he was cognizant of the problems which confronted our people. 
We know that his sympathies comprehended the desires and aspi- 
rations of our citizenship to better our community life. We know 
that in the largeness of his soul he thought much of the forgotten 
boy back in the humble home of the illiterate and the poverty- 
stricken, the boy who needs only to be touched to arouse in him 
ambitions which will lift him out of the narrowness of his shat-in 
life. We know that had Stacy lived his strength would have been 
spent in seeking to carry the power of University ideas and ideals 
to all our people. 

Realizing all this, we come today and, in a feeble and imperfect 
way, pay tribute to his memory. Words are cold and heartless 
things. They have small power to give adequate expression to 
those deeper emotions which stir the heart of man. They tell little 
of the love we had for Marvin Stacy and can add nothing to the 
honor of his name. His life and his work here speak for him in 
more fitting terms than any language we can employ. 

We who bear testimony to our love for him by participation in 
this service can best demonstrate that love by increased devotion 
to this institution, by faithful and loyal support to the man who 
shall be called to guide its destinies, by giving to it the opportunity 
to carry on, in an even larger way, the work which was near to his 
heart. With uncovered heads we come today in the presence of 
the eternal spirit of Marvin Stacy and covenant to and with each 
other that the institution for which we have an abiding affection, 
the institution for which he gave his life, shall have forever as its 
ideal and purpose a desire to serve all mankind. 

CLOSING PRATER 

Rev. Euclid McWhorter 

O Lord God, we thank Thee for the establishment which we 
honor as Thy church, and for the guaranty that sin and destruc- 
tion shall never prevail against it. We thank Thee for the light 



University of North Carolina 19 

it sheds upon human darkness; for the joy it brings through its 
ministry; for the love and faith it kindles in the desolate heart. 
We thank Thee for the ideals of manhood and the lofty develop- 
ment of character possible through Thy grace, and for the person 
of Thy Son, who demonstrated to us what we may attain through 
faith and prayer. 

Thou hast made possible to us the sweetness and joy of domestic 
life ; bestowed upon us the godlike conception of fatherhood which 
dignifies and safeguards childhood, and made the home circle a 
cloistered spot where we learn to pray, and where habits are fixed 
for after-manhood, so that the streams of thought and activity are 
turned heavenward. 

We thank Thee that such beauty of situation and the joy of 
earth has come to the church, that it is impregnable. We thank 
Thee that her chiefest defense against which darkness cannot pre- 
vail, and which renders impotent all the powers of hell, is her type 
of pure motherhood, and the product of her clean manhood. 

We thank Thee for the clean, religious home from which came 
the sturdy character of Marvin Stacy ; for the simple faith of those 
who early taught his tender feet to tread the paths of trust and 
prayer and obedience ; and for all those blessed associations which 
fixed beyond every shadow his confidence in righteousness, which 
made him the positive force for good that he was amongst the 
student life of this University. 

Grant that all we who go from this sacred hour may cherish and 
defend these sacred conferments, and may always seek to establish 
and build up this triumphant faith amongst men. Grant that by 
our high living we may demonstrate the practical blessedness of 
Thy Kingdom, and thus contribute our part to the final victory 
of life over death. 

May God comfort the bereaved ones of his household with 
spiritual grace, and make the life of the man whose memory we 
hereby perpetuate a fountain of everlasting inspiration and joy. 
Amen. 



Resolutions in Honor of Dean Stacy 

THE FACULTY OF THE UNIYERSITY 

The faculty deeply feels the loss of its colleague and official 
head, Marvin Hendrix Stacy. As instrilctor, professor, dean, and 
chairman of the faculty, he was recognized as a man of great 
ability, both as a teacher and executive. His influence upon the 
University in its upbuilding and guidance has been most helpful 
and he will be greatly missed in its councils and in all matters 
that concern its welfare. 

Quiet in manner, utterly unselfish, he was strong and wise in 
action. He had the love and respect of the students and the ad- 
miration and affection of his colleagues. Clear, convincing, and 
eloquent as a speaker, he was a power for good in the University 
and the State, doing in this way a large and important work in 
bringing the University and its work to the attention of the people 
whom it serves. 

Loyal, true, eminently just, sympathetic, considerate of others, 
he was in the highest sense a Christian gentleman. We mourn 
his death and extend our heartfelt sympathy to his family. — 
Louis E. Wilson, F. P. Venable, H. M. Wagstaff, M. C. S. 
Noble, T. J. Wilson, Jk., Goirhmittee. 

THE STUDENT-BODY 

Whereas, An All-wise God has seen fit to take from our midst 
our beloved friend and teacher, Marvin Hendrix Stacy, and 

Wheeeas, Feeling that to the whole student-body he has ever 
been a kind friend and wise counselor, and 

Whereas, To all of us, singly and together, he has been a gen- 
erous spirit, easy of access, sympathetic in understanding, whole 
hearted in devotion to us, and 

Whereas, He has sacrificed his all to serve his and our dear 
Alma Mater, toiling tirelessly and unselfishly to serve her in these 
recent days : Therefore, be it 

Resolved, That the above convey our heartfelt sympathy to his 
family and serve as a sincere expression of the sentiment of the 



TJniveksitt of I^orth Carolina 21 

■whole student-bodj of the University. — L. H. Hodges, Senior 
Class; E. E. White, Junior Class; Earl Reaves, Sophomore 
Class; Santford Brown, Freshman Class; Mrs. Irene Graves, 
Law School; Donald Cobb, Medical School; J. S. White, Phar- 
macy School; J. S. Terry, Graduate School. 

THE GENERAL ASSESIBLT OF NORTH CAROLINA 

The General Assembly of Worth Carolina, having heard with 
profound regret of the death of Professor Marvin Hendrix Stacy, 
Professor of Civil Engineering and Chairman of the Faculty of 
the University of North Carolina, who died at his home in Chapel 
Hill on Tuesday, January 21, 1919, is desirous of expressing its 
sense of the loss which the University and State have thereby 
sustained. 

A graduate of the University and for sixteen years a member 
of its faculty. Professor Stacy had risen from the position of 
instructor in mathematics to that of professor of civil engineering 
and dean of the College of Liberal Arts, and had fulfilled the sev- 
eral trusts which had been committed to him with such efficiency 
and fidelity to duty as to win the complete confidence of students, 
faculty, and trustees. Upon the death of the late President Edward 
Kidder Graham, he was at once placed in charge of the admin- 
istration of the affairs of the University as chairman of the 
faculty, which position at the time of his death he was filling 
with great ability and promise : Therefore, be it 

Resolved, by the Senate, the House of Representatives concur- 
ring, That in the death of Professor Stacy the University and the 
State have lost a public servant whose career marked him as a 
teacher endowed with high powers of inspiration, as a counselor 
of sound judgment, and as a man of high and lofty ideals of service 
and broad, liberal sympathies. 

Resolved further, That these resolutions be spread upon the 
journals of the Senate and the House of Representatives as a 
testimonial of the high esteem in which the people of N"orth Caro- 
lina held Professor Stacy as a man, and their confidence in him 
as an educational leader. 

Resolved, third. That the Secretary of State have a copy of 
these resolutions transmitted to the family of the deceased. 



22 Maevin" Hendeix Stacy 

THE SENATE OF NORTH CAROLINA 

Whereas, The members of the Senate have heard with sincerest 
sorrow of the death of Prof. M. H. Stacy, chairman of the faculty 
of the University of North Carolina, and brother of our colleague 
and friend. Senator H. E, Stacy, from the Twelfth District: 
JSTow, therefore, be it 

Resolved, That individually and as a body we extend to Senator 
Stacy and the other members of his family our sincerest sympathy 
in their bereavement. 

That when the Senate adjourns today, it do adjourn in honor 
of the memory of Professor M. H. Stacy. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




